They’d stopped swimming and stared at me, hard, as though I’d done something wrong. Suddenly, I remembered Susan saying that I looked like Carey. Maybe she was right, from a distance, when my hair was plastered wet to my skull, maybe we were the same, two muscular little women with big eyes and big boobs, and what I thought was a shiver ran down my spine.

But it wasn’t a shiver—it was a pair of hands that touched me. Warm, bony hands that wrapped around my waist and shoved me off the edge of the dock.

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

When I came up to the surface, someone was laughing, and the outline of a foot kicked water in my face. Max—smeared with dirt, still wearing her organza ball gown from the night before—sat on the edge of the dock. A thirty-five-millimeter camera, a Leica rangefinder with a wide-angle lens screwed onto the front, hung from her neck on a worn leather strap. Her long legs reached out toward me, water dripping from her polished toes, and the musical scales of her laughter bounced over the waves.

“You’re still in your dress,” I said, pointing to the muddy hem. Max looked down as though this was completely normal.

“I slept in it,” she said, aiming the camera at me and hitting the shutter. “That’s the privilege of being a lady of the manor. I sleep in my gowns. Plus, Charlie went to the city.”

“Are you high?” I asked plainly.

“Not anymore,” she said, pulling the camera away from her face and peering at me with one big blue eye. A strip of extra-long false lashes was only half glued to her eyelid. I squinted back at her.

“Cross my heart,” she said lucidly. “I’m in control.” She pointed the camera at the studio, capturing the truck’s nose peeking out of the door. “What space were you in before?” she asked.

“My studio,” Marlin said.

“This is better,” Max stated decisively. Marlin glanced away. “For her,” Max corrected quickly.

“Speaking of—” I pulled myself out of the channel, took off my t-shirt, and then my shorts, and squeezed the water out of each. “I have to get going. I gotta shop.”

“No!” Max yelled. “You’re abandoning me.”

“Tick tock,” I said, shaking my head, turning back to the studio. “Summer is short.”

“See ya,” Marlin called out. To my surprise, Tyler scrambled after me, grabbing Marlin’s keys and holding open the door to her truck.

“I’ll give you a ride,” he said, checking the time. “You don’t have time to walk back. The D-spot closes at ten, and it’s a forty-five-minute drive.”

“The D-spot?”

“Home Depot,” he said. “I assume you need more plywood. Framing, too.”

“Uh…maybe, I’m not sure,” I lied, clipping my seat belt.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” He laughed, backing out.